Palapa ring project

palapa ring is a “dream” project of indonesian government since 1997, it is about 34000 km (21100 mile) backbone fibre optic cable network all aorund the country. the total cost of the project is 1.5 billion US$, there are 7 companies will held and licensed this project. here’s the company :

PT Bakrie Telecom Tbk,

PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk,

PT Indosat Tbk,

PT Macca System Infocom

PT Powertek Utama Internusa

PT Mobile-8 Telecom Tbk

PT Infokom Elektrindo

Although the sum of $1.5 billion is being bandied around as the total cost of the project the consortium has yet to commit to the backbone map that DGPOSTEL and the Indonesian government has been promoting. The map as can be seen below has submarine cables landing every few kilometers as they garland the various islands. The highest cost-component of a submarine cable system are the cable landing stations.The proposed design is not cost-efficient. It would make more sense to land a submarine cable at couple of points in an island and use terrestrial fiber optic or microwave to connect the rest of the island.